


The Scent of Green

by emmykay



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, olfactory, sensory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 19:25:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5796886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmykay/pseuds/emmykay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey is a child of the desert.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scent of Green

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Запах зелени](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13846662) by [Rainy_Elliot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainy_Elliot/pseuds/Rainy_Elliot), [WTF_Women_2018](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Women_2018/pseuds/WTF_Women_2018)



A lifetime on a desert planet could not have prepared her for it.

The moment she stepped out of the Millennium Falcon, not even having yet set foot on solid ground, Rey couldn't believe Takodana's assault on her senses.

So much green, and blue - it was as though her eyes couldn't take in the full saturation of the plants and the water. She couldn't stop blinking. It was one thing to see an image on a computer screen - it's fully another to experience the intensity of color - to see that such green had dimension and shape and variegation - to know you could reach out and touch it. 

Rey could discern densities of shade against the sand with an accuracy second to none - but this - this was too much. How green was this? It almost hurt. Han had said something about this being a drier year than the last time he'd been here. Drier? How could anything be wetter than this air without being completely underwater?

The air here had a weight of its own. Not the heaviness of the dry waves of heat or the blasts from the scorched metal of the scrapyard. More like the wisps of moisture from her own body, precious damp that was stolen by the desperately thirsty air of Jakku. But here. The moisture - the damp - was all over, oppressive. 

That wasn't the worst of it. The damp had smells, too. As she tried to grasp the idea, trying to find a comparison, the smell that sprang most mind was that of faded, dusty metal, acres of scrapyard baking in the sun. Here, it smelled strongly of - of - what she wasn't sure. She worried at a faint recall; scratched at it, uncovering nothing.

There was no time to linger, they were moving on to Maz's.

And then, as she ran through the woods, panicking, unseeing of the grand trees in front of her, panting through the thick, wet air, barely avoiding the hollows and hills on her unruly path, she remembered. She knew what the smell was as it surrounded her, pressed in against her, and why it bothered her so much. 

It was rot and death. And then it all went dark.

A funny thing: it seemed to her that ventilation inside all large structures should be the same, run through industrial filters, dehumidifiers and ion purifiers, but by virtue of age and materials and quirks of manufacture, they weren't. The air forced through the systems of the Millennium Falcon still had a touch of the baked air of Jakku, taints of durasteel and joint lubricant, sour tangs of old sweat, faint scorchings that originated in the organic, along with a myriad of other mysterious scents she would never understand. 

Here, inside this base, where she could feel the faint pulse of the vent system, the damp smell followed her, clinging to her clothing. She couldn't not think of this scent, this new sense.

There was no time to think once she escaped. After stumbling and catching the snowy ground in her hands, rising with the lightsaber in her hands in front of her captor, the smell of the burning air around the plasma, feeling the arcing of the light as it cut through that frozen air directed by something seemingly outside of ehrself, the cold harshness in her lungs, and world turning upside down.

Chewbacca dropped the entry ramp and they fled.

Later, speeding across the Ileenium system, (she, who had barely seen anything beyond the junkyards of Jakkar!) as she chased a clue, a ghost, she worked at the puzzle in her head. There was that faint call of something that faded as she chased it across her mind, the harder she chased, the faster it retreated. Once reminded, she could not forget, but remembering did not allow for better understanding.

It was only after landing and walking out onto a likely rocky outcrop on Ahch-To, that she knew. What was this mystery, this speck within a speck, this wet planet dotted with islands, this planet that was more water than she could have ever truly conceived of seeing, water that was grey and stormy.

The air was full of moisture and smelled of salt and rot and something else.

She knew what it was, that smell, that sensation, knew even the way it pushed against her.

It was rebirth.

She looked at the tiny path worn into the rock and the moss as it wended its way upward, touched the lightsaber tucked into her belt for reassurance, and began to climb.

**Author's Note:**

> It was honestly weird to me that Rey never said anything about how humid it must have been on Takodana.


End file.
